We begin the program looking at the appearance late this afternoon of Alex Rodriguez on the Mike Francesa radio program on WFAN in New York. Rodriguez sought the sympathetic ear of Francesa after storming out of his hearing today with an arbitrator over his 211 game suspension issued by Major League Baseball earlier this year. Brian, who also works as a media consultant for athletes, chimes in on whether Rodriguez’ strategy will pay off for him in the court of public opinion.

Over to the the NFL next and Ken’s piece on Awful Announcingon the flex options that await the league’s media partners when the new television contracts take effect next year.

We then move to the news that CBS NFL game analyst Dan Dierdorf will be retiring at the end of the current NFL season after 30 years televising games for CBS and ABC.

College basketball may be seeing quite the change in coverage at the NCAA Final Four beginning next year as Turner Sports takes over televising the national semi-final games. John Ourand at Sports Business Journal has the details.

We wrap the news segment by looking at the news by NBC that Bob Costas will be adding late night hosting duties to his primetime gig at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

The blockbuster story of the week came yesterday when Fox Sports won the rights to telecast USGA events under a 12-year deal which begins in 2015. NBC has had the rights for the USGA since 1995. In our discussion we speculate whether Fox paid too much for the rights (reported at $100 million) and how NBC will fare after 2014 when it will no longer be covering any of golf’s major tournaments. We also speculate as to how Fox will cover the sport, as the network has no track record of televising golf events.

Next we move to how the CBS/Time Warner Cable impasse is impacting the coverage of sports. We then look ahead one month when another carriage deal is up for renewal, ESPN’s contract with Dish Network. We all agree that the only losers in these fights are the consumers.

We wrap the show looking at the release of the NBA schedule this week and its impact on ESPN, TNT and NBA TV…and Keith Olbermann’s return to ESPN’s SportsCenter tonight to provide what’s called a “special essay” on Alex Rodriguez.

We begin the show looking at the news that the NFL is moving the date of next year’s NFL Draft to May. This will benefit the league’s broadcast partners ESPN and the NFL Network who’ll be able to charge more for advertising during the ratings “sweeps” month.

We then move into the realm of ESPN Radio with its announcement that it will provide out-of-market coverage of five NFL teams’ games beginning this fall. ESPN also made news this week with the hiring of southern U.S. sports radio legend Paul Finebaum.

We move on to discuss how the hiring of Robert Lipsyte as the new ombudsman at ESPN may, or may not, result in any significant changes at the World Wide Leader.

Our second guest this week is Bob Socci, current radio voice for the Pawtucket Red Sox, who will soon become the new radio voice of the New England Patriots, replacing the legendary Gil Santos. Bob discusses his good fortune in getting both the PawSox and Patriots jobs in a matter of weeks. Socci will be leaving the PawSox in July to begin his work in Foxboro.

The temperature at the Sports Media Weekly studios may be frigid, but the topics continue to be red hot.

Joining Ken Fang of Fang’s Bites and I for our “Third Man In” segment is Brian Berger, host of Sports Business Radio and partner in the media consulting firm Everything is on the Record. Brian relied on his experience in helping athletes shape their message during our discussion on how poorly linebacker Manti Te’O and cyclist Lance Armstrong handled their crises last week.

We then dovetail into the ratings for this past weekend’s AFC and NFC Championship games; viewership numbers which were outstanding for other sports but a dip for the NFL. We also look ahead as to what the story lines may be when the 49ers take on the Ravens in Super Bowl XLVII.

We wrap-up the segment looking at the return of the NHL and the strong opening day ratings numbers for NBC.

Our other gust this week is Amy Van Dyken, Olympic gold medal-winning swimmer who now co-hosts a weeknight show with Rob Dibble on Fox Sports Radio. Amy recounts how she got into the media business and how it is more difficult covering sports than competing in them.